


The Arrangement

by Sakiku



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Dom/sub, Edging, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, Multi, Other, Public Sex, Slice of Life, Sticky Sex, Toys, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2013-07-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 07:01:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 44
Words: 19,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sakiku/pseuds/Sakiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone knows that Prowl shows no emotions. Well, you wouldn't show emotions either if you were trying to hide that you had been stuffed with a huge dildo, would you?</p><p>The story of an arrangement, told in bits and pieces in no specific order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. fair

**Author's Note:**

> You know the drill by now. Prompt: <http://tfanonkink.livejournal.com/10462.html?thread=11925726#t11925726>

Prowl frowned. The stipulation that he not alter the input from his pelvic sensors was as usual. He had been given fair warning beforehand and had cleared his schedule accordingly. However, life on the Ark hardly ever complied with his plans.

He stared at a banged-up Sideswipe and a mutinous Sunstreaker, who both stood in front of his desk completely unrepentant. 

“To the brig.”

Nobody moved. Sighing, Prowl got up and forcibly marched them to their cells.

Only the smallest quiver of his doorwings gave away that the remote-inflated dildo deep inside his valve had just grown another inch.


	2. mint

“Open.”

When Prowl didn't comply immediately, the spike thrusting into his valve stilled.

“Open.” Harsher.

In the end, his need to overload didn't leave him a choice. Trembling, Prowl's chest plates parted. 

Soft digits stroked the place where his date of activation, his serial number, and his Praxian enforcer brand had been minted into the crystal of his spark-chamber. The only reason Prowl endured the touch was because he knew he would find a similar imprint on the other's core.

He arched into the spike resuming its actions and a glossa licking that most secret of secret places.


	3. planet

Pre-programmed mechs had always turned to each other for pleasure. The reason was simple: Normals couldn't understand the damage caused by being forced into full function from the first orn.

So Prowl hadn't thought it strange when, less than two orn after the other mech had joined the Autobots, he received a request for an overload arrangement. What had been more unusual was the proposed mode: Agens and Reagens. One who acted and one who reacted. With Prowl as the Reagens.

However, by the time the Ark stranded on planet earth, Prowl could not imagine any other constellation between them.


	4. night

In the sanctuary of his quarters, Prowl's iron control finally dissolved. His fields ignited with arousal, his doorwings adopted a constant tremor, static moaned in his vocalizer.

His limbs shook like a Crystal-addict's, and he nearly didn't make it to his berth. He fell onto his front, clenching his servos above his helmet to resist opening his burning interface-panel.

 _Tonight, you will overload without touching yourself,_ his Agens had told him before their shift. 

With another moan, Prowl gave in to the energy cell his Agens had installed into Prowl's interface-panel, which kept shooting charges into his valve and spike.


	5. barrel

Ironhide laid down a hail of plasma fire while Sunstreaker and Cliffjumper charged straight into close combat. Prowl hunkered down behind a boulder, directing the battle at the same time as sniping convenient targets.

The only place where their arrangement had no place was the battlefield. Even minute distractions could be deadly when facing the Combaticons, the Seekers, especially Megatron himself. 

_However,_ , Prowl reflected as he sighted down the barrel of his rifle and eliminated another threat, _it seems like it doesn't mean that training is exempt_.

He shivered at the vibrations inside his valve before choosing his next target.


	6. joint

Prowl had always been called stiff and uptight. Being in an overload arrangement had changed none of that, despite the twins' insinuations that all Prowl needed was a good frag.

Prowl hadn't entered the arrangement seeking to better his lack of emotional understanding. It was part of his glitch as pre-programmed mech, and no amount of fragging would cure that.

However, having a constant charge in his frame helped with the processor freezes. Nowadays, most of Prowl's stiffness was due to having to lock both joints and plates lest he wanted to show just how close he was to overloading.


	7. backpack

Receiving panicked messages from Red Alert was nothing new for Prowl.

“There's an unidentified container next to the energon dispenser in the rec-room! It's been unattended for three breem, and there's no security footage how it got there!”

Whenever the security chief couldn't investigate a threat himself, the task fell to Prowl.

The 'unidentified container' was a backpack with a white and orange traffic-cone inside. The accompanying note was enlightening: ' _For tonight._ '. Signed by Prowl's Agens.

Tucking the backpack into his subspace, Prowl tried not to think about the phallic shape while convincing Red Alert that everything was alright.


	8. bulb

Distracted, Prowl tried to concentrate on his datapad.

It would be only too easy to remove the bulbous plug that kept water trapped inside his valve. There wasn't much water, just enough to slosh across internal sensors whenever he so much as even twitched.

He could have gotten used to being filled completely, but the constant change of medium kept igniting his sensor nodes anew.

It would be just as easy to touch himself and overload or deaden the sensory feeds from his valve. But if he did so behind his Agens' back, their arrangement would end.

So Prowl endured.


	9. juice

Prowl decided that sitting down on a traffic-cone was... uncomfortable at best. Fully inserted, its bottom girth stretched his valve almost painfully, while its top poked deep inside.

Walking, however, was even more uncomfortable. Both gravity and his clenching valve calipers forced the cone-shape out, and it took an entire processor node to constantly override the unlocking of his interface panel.

Having to first walk to the officer meeting and then sit down without giving any hint of the traffic-cone, was torture.

It was good that he had remembered to insert a lubricant-absorbing pad between his interface-panel and his valve.


	10. berth

For Prowl, it was the most natural reaction to formulate their arrangement in numbers.

He had 4.8781 overloads an orn, of which 94.52 percent were nowhere near a berth. Only 24.69 percent involved his spike, whereas his valve was filled in 97.23 percent. 10.44 percent of his processing power was dedicated to the constant charge wracking his frame, another 8.92 percent to making sure none caught on to his state of arousal. 

However, numbers couldn't express what it was like to sit in his office and moan to the toys filling him and hope no mech walked in on him.


	11. binder

They were both pre-programmed. Damaged, when the sudden flux of spark energy carved patterns into the pre-formed crystal spark-chamber processor where code had already been impregnated. Damaged, when the spark's modifications weren't compatible with the rest of the frame. Damaged, when the patches which some unconcerned medics slapped over those sparking glitches, came with problems of their own.

There was a _reason_ why pre-programmed mechs were thought of as simple, almost drone-like.

Prowl's glitch wasn't one of the lightest ones, but not one of the worst either. At least his spark wasn't diametrically opposite to his coded function. In fact, his spark was exceedingly well-suited for tactical thinking. So well that it had tried to access his emotive routines via the tactical network, too, and that was the base of his problems. Emotions simply didn't run in the same computational format as tacs did. 

When pared down to the very basics, even emotions could be broken down into logic. Input both from the environment and the spark, fed by a myriad of associations that had been established by memory processing algorithms, and checked against hard-wired core programs. Prowl's tac network _could_ comprehend his emotive output; however, it wasn't built for it. It didn't have the millions of parallel bus links to the memory association storage. It didn't have the specialized processors with neural network circuits already quantum-doted into their matrix. It simply couldn't handle that kind of information in real-time because it lacked the special hardware.

Prowl had learned to work around it. He had built a huge library with situations mapped to emotive responses in the format his tac-net could use. When faced with new situations, the extrapolations his tac-net did based on the library maps were identical to his emotive processor output in 99 percent of all cases. When there was a disparity though, that was when he glitched – his tac-net didn't allow any new input until it had calculated the reasons behind the difference.

His Agens' glitch was of a different nature. In brief, his Agens was a perfectionist. Situations that Prowl's tac-net could shunt into the .001 percent range of chaotic background probabilities, his Agens could not. His tac-net had to control _everything_ , and so it gave situations with very low probability nearly the same amount of attention as situations with high probability. Another facet of his Agens' glitch was that he couldn't trust mechs to perform to his standards. His Agens was nearly incapable of delegating. 

The more his Agens had described his glitch during their negotiations at the beginning of their arrangement, the clearer it had become to Prowl that the proposed mode of Agens and Reagens was the only possible constellation. The need for control was simply too deeply wired into his Agens. Even with nearly daily reassurance, it had taken vorns for his Agens' glitch to accept that Prowl did indeed follow his instructions, whether his Agens was watching him or not. 

So, even when the copy of his Agens' spike that had been fashioned from looped and braided cables that were held together at the base by a cable binder, had long ago crossed the territory into uncomfortable, Prowl didn't remove it. Simple discomfort in his valve was a small price for not triggering his Agens' glitch.


	12. uniform

The uniform coating of Prowl's valve stretched to the very last node inside. It was a special blend of repair-grade nanites that fixed any microtears of his valve lining. The gel contained the necessary metals the nanites needed, and it provided the perfect environment for the nanites to work.

Unfortunately, the combination of foreign nanites, the raw materials, and the conductive gel, produced the correct frequency to irritate heat sensors. Prowl's valve was burning uncomfortably, and it would continue to burn until the nanites had done their job and their apoptosis code activated.

His Agens had instructed him to apply it this morning, because the inflating plug from the day before had stretched him nearly above his limits. 

(A glorious, glorious stretch that was surely bigger than Optimus' spike and might even come close to Skyfire's size, and Prowl had still been able to transform into his alt-mode and chase down Sideswipe who had painted the rec-room a splotchy purple and orange. And if his plug-stretched valve had pressed right against his spark-chamber in vehicle mode, and every single bump in the road had vibrated it against his core circuitry, well... It was good that Prowl's tactical module could channel excessive charge into icy anger.)

The door of his office pinged him with an admittance request, and Prowl sighed. Giving the acceptance signal, Prowl sat up a tiny bit straighter than his already straight posture and ignored how the slight shift alighted new heat sensors of his already burning valve.

It was Jazz who danced in and sprawled himself across the single chair Prowl had for visitors. “Hay, my mech, how's it groovin'?”

Prowl set aside the specialized stylus Wheeljack had invented for bots to fill in human-sized paperwork. It was incomprehensible for him why the tiny organics insisted on wasting both time and trees when it would be so much easier to fill in the forms electronically.

“What do you want, Jazz?” he asked and once again ignored the suggestion of his systems that turning on his lubrication system would help with getting rid of the irritant. 

If the repair nanites had been applied in med-bay, protocol would have demanded that the medic both deactivate all sensors in his valve, and give the lubrication system a medical shut-down. That way, Prowl wouldn't feel anything, and the distracting messages would be completely absent. 

However, that would completely defeat the purpose of their game.

Jazz smiled at him in a wide, toothy smile. “Well, a li'l birdie's told me that ole Megsie's tryin' ta hit Oyster Creek next.”

There was no need for Prowl to access human networks – he had long ago mapped all tactically important points on this planet. Apparently, Megatron was going for a nuclear power plant this time in his search for energon. The danger of such a target was exponentially greater than with hydraulic or even gas power plants. They would have to be very, very careful with stopping the Decepticons.

A quick read-out of his processors told him that the burning in his valve and the charge in his systems didn't reduce his efficiency too much for a preliminary analysis. There was still time before he had to reroute every erg available to his tac processors.

He focused all his attention on Jazz (minus the threads demanded by the almost-pain in his valve and the non-medical override of his lubrication system). “Report.”


	13. miser

Prowl was early for the officers' meeting. As usual, he was the first one. It didn't matter much to him whether he studied his data pads in his office, or in the conference room.

He went to his place to the left of Optimus' seat and sat down without looking up from his data pad. That, however, proved to be a mistake. He grimaced as nearly his entire weight came down on a blunt tip poking his interface-panel. Quickly he got up again and inspected the seat. There was a metallic phallus mounted in the center of the chair, a milled spike in a fully pressurized state.

Prowl frowned. Was this one of the twins' jokes, or was this...

 _/Open your interface panel and sit down,/_ his Agens commed him with his regular secrecy of a triple-encrypted DA-5 layer on top of a X2 substitution. _/You have one and a half kliks until Ironhide arrives at the conference room. I will only release the magnetic lock of the toy when you have completely taken it inside./_

Prowl was quite sure that his Agens was currently manning surveillance, and so didn't suppress the irritated-aroused twitch of his doorwings. Just as well that breaking his Agens' encryption was just about impossible. Conversations like this one weren't for the regular Arc gossip. _/My valve isn't lubricated enough./_ After the processor-whitening overload the day before, Prowl had neither had anything in his valve, nor felt the need. 

_/Then I suggest you work on it./_

Glaring at one of the security cameras in a ceiling corner, Prowl followed the instructions. There was little time if he wanted to keep things a secret. Bracing himself against the chair with his servos, he lowered himself onto the spike. The tip pressed harshly against the rim of his valve, so he adjusted the angle of his hip assembly a bit. 

Doorwings hitched high in concentration, he took the first couple of inches inside. It was a large spike, but not too large. Still, the residual lubrication of his valve wasn't enough to let him slide down further than the first third. It helped that he was getting aroused both from the familiar stretch and the knowledge that his Agens was watching, so he pushed himself upwards and sunk back down. He was essentially fragging himself on that spike, spreading his natural lubricant with the steady in-out. Every time the glide became easier and he managed to sink a bit deeper.

 _/Servos on the table. Pretend you're reading your datapad,/_ his Agens commanded. _/Half a klik left./_

Growling, Prowl unclenched his digits from where they had dug into the frame of his chair. The entire up-down motion was now being supported by his thigh hydraulics. His doorwings trembled, and his optics stared sightlessly at the datapad his servos were trying not to crush. Finally, lubrication flowing freely now, he managed to sit down. His mouth was opened in a silent gasp. Between the spike facsimile holding his lower torso in place and the back of his chair pressing against his doorwings, he couldn't move at all.

 _/Good,/_ his Agens nearly purred into the com-frequency. There were plenty of glyphs arranged through the message that spoke of arousal and approval. _/I will disengage the magnetic lock now. You still have 9.5834 nanokliks left./_

Scrap. It was too short a time to take out the toy and get rid of it without anyone catching on. Also, Prowl couldn't count on being the last one to leave after the meeting. He would have to close his interface-panel. The only way for him to be able to close his interface panel again was...

With a hastiness uncommon to his normal motions, he used his digits to give the bottom of the spike-imitate a harsh push up into his valve until he could slam his interface-panel shut. He had just enough time to assume his regular straight-backed posture before the door pinged open. He had already killed his heat fans (when had they activated?) and pulled his fields in tight, and that was the only reason Ironhide didn't notice when Prowl's Agens reengaged the magnetic lock of the spike. 

“Mornin',” the old warrior growled, and Prowl barely managed an acknowledging flick of his doorwings.

The magnetic lock clamped onto the metal of both Prowl's interface-panel and his valve. It sent a burst of pure ecstasy through him that was so strong he nearly overloaded. Only gradually were his processors beginning to work through the sudden charge. 

Prowl found himself still staring at his datapad, with the old miser looking at the door and tapping his digits impatiently on the conference table. Less than three nanokliks later Optimus entered, followed by Jazz and Springer in short succession.

 _/Good job,/_ Prowl's Agens' pleased message overlaid itself over the noise of the slowly filling conference room. _/Nobody has seen anything. Now, will you be able to keep that up throughout the meeting?/_

Slowly the magnetic lock of the spike disengaged until it was just a lifeless chunk of metal in Prowl's valve. But Prowl just _knew_ that his Agens was waiting for the perfect moment to switch it on again.

With stiff doorwings, he did his best to pay attention to the agenda.


	14. beetle

Bumblebee, the youngest member of their time-displaced unit of Autobots had been sulking around the doors to Prowl's office. He approached, but then backed off just before the automatic opening mechanism could notify Prowl. Bumblebee retreated a couple of paces before apparently steeling himself and turning around, but then capitulated yet again just before he got to the door.

Prowl would have been unaware of all that if his Agens hadn't kept him informed – a link to the video-feed from the hallway cameras.

 _/He looks very suspicious,/_ Prowl's Agens fretted in his usual high-strung manner. 

Prowl had to agree. _/It is unusual for Bumblebee to display such reluctance./_

Their earlier game – there was a remote-controlled dildo inside Prowl's valve, which would either start buzzing or growing at his Agens' command – was forgotten with the emergence of his Agens' glitch. After Bumblebee's second pass, his Agens had sent Prowl the video-feed. For the next two or three passes, his Agens had always increased the intensity of the vibrations when the small yellow mech approached. It was their game for Prowl to be pushed to the limits of his abilities, acting as if nothing was wrong when in reality he was microns away from overloading.

However, the situation was starting to trigger his Agens' glitch, and glitches were a hard stop in their arrangement. His Agens' focus was starting to narrow more and more on Bumblebee's suspicious behavior, the toy in Prowl's valve completely forgotten for now.

By Bumblebee's eighth pass, Prowl decided to stop the situation before his Agens' glitch took fully hold. He silently commed his door to open. 

“Come in, Bumblebee,” he called out.

The silence over com was deafening as his Agens watched with the manic focus of the obsessed how the yellow mech froze in mid-motion. The camera was at a bad angle, but Prowl thought that Bumblebee's doorwings slumped and his whole frame assumed a 'Scrap, I've been caught' posture.

Slowly, the mech made his way to Prowl's doorway until Prowl could verify his impression with his own optics instead of the hallway cameras. Bumblebee looked like he had been caught red-handed – Prowl had seen similar expressions from all of the Ark's would-be pranksters, Bumblebee amongst them.

The yellow minibot shuffled inside and waited until the door closed behind him. Prowl could feel the tense attention from his Agens, who was probably directing more than 60 percent of his processor power to monitoring the situation. Only the fact that even his Agens' glitch had accepted Prowl's capability of handling himself to his Agens' full satisfaction, kept the hyperalert mech from having a full breakdown.

“What do you need, Bumblebee?” Prowl asked when the VW beetle didn't make any move to explain his presence.

“I – would you – “ Bumblebee shook himself before standing up straight and focusing on a point just behind Prowl's doorwings. “I want to interface with you.”

The sudden static spitting into Prowl's com-link signaled that his Agens was similarly surprised. Prowl's tac-net could come up with several logical explanations for Bumblebee's request, and none of them were very positive. 

“Why?” It was most likely that someone had dared the minibot to say that to Prowl, but there could also be more sinister reasons.

Bumblebee squirmed, but seemed reassured by Prowl's long-ingrained habit of not letting anything show in his fields. “I – well, I've heard them talking 'bout you, that you wouldn't know a spike from a piston and that processing the glyphs for 'frag' and 'overload' together would make you glitch, and when I asked them how they knew that, they told me that everybot knows that you don't interface, but when I asked if anyone had actually asked you they just laughed at me.”

The resemblance to Bluestreak's endless monologues was striking.

“So,” Bumblebee continued, his entire field flaring with nervousness, “I thought I'd ask you directly instead of just listening to gossip, because I don't think it's very fair that everyone says all those things about you when they don't actually know.”

Curiosity. Prowl's tac-net had identified that with a 89.42 percent chance it was a reason for the minibot's request. Bumblebee's youth and subsequent novelty of his interface protocols probably also played into things, but Prowl couldn't eliminate other motivations. Like this being a dare, Bumblebee trying to do something boast-worthy, or information gathering.

His Agens remained suspiciously quiet, although their com-link was still wide open.

“I am a pre-programmed mech,” Prowl finally stated without twitching his doorwings even once.

Bumblebee's doorwings were much more telling. They canted slightly at the same time as he tilted his head. Typical signs of confusion. “So?”

“Pre-programmed mechs don't interface with normal ones.”

“Why?” Bumblebee frowned. “Is it because your interface equipment isn't compatible? But I thought pre-programmed mechs had the same parts as a normal adult frame, just that they didn't have a sparkling and youngling frame before the final one.”

Apparently, either the war or the environment Bumblebee had grown up in, had failed in teaching him the cultural prejudice against pre-programmed mechs. They way Bumblebee questioned things Prowl's tac-net had long ago finalized as immutable constants in his library, started to put a strain on him. Prowl's emotive reactions were beginning to diverge from his tac-net standard of 'No interfacing with Normals', and if he couldn't reunite the two processing lines anytime soon he was going to glitch.

“Interface equipment is secondary. Proper mechs don't interface with drones.”

Slowly, the toy inside Prowl's valve started pulsing. The additional charge generated from the stimulation was eagerly swallowed up by Prowl's tac-net, overclocking in an effort to prevent a glitch onset. Apparently, his Agens' glitch had settled without causing a shut-down, and his Agens had caught on to Prowl heading towards a similar situation. A building charge was sometimes helpful for Prowl.

Bumblebee's indignant flare of both his fields and his doorwings, did not help solve Prowl's dichotomy. It only emphasized the honesty of the minibot's feelings. “I know what they are saying, but you have a spark – you are no drone!”

Prowl nodded jerkily. “But all Pre-programmed have glitches. Normals aren't willing to adjust for that for a simple interface.”

“I --” With a hydraulic sigh, an imitation of the human equivalent, Bumblebee's doorwings sank. “Sorry. I didn't realize that – I can understand if you don't want to tell me about your glitch. That's got to be something very personal. More personal than interfacing. But --” The minibot looked away, “I don't mind that you're pre-programmed. I don't know a thing about glitches so you'd probably have to tell me a lot about how interfacing works with one, but – well, I wouldn't mind.”

Normals didn't interface with Pre-programmed. Prowl didn't want – hadn't wanted – to interface with Normals. His emotive reaction to Bumblebee though was incomprehensible. Some of his feelings indicated that he did want to interface with Bumblebee; at the same time there was a complex swath of guilt-anger-pride-shame-longing-hurt which his tac-net had trouble naming, let alone comprehending. 

All his tac-cores were maxing out with the familiar, unsuited calculations, and Prowl could feel himself running hot. There was the familiar locking of his joints as autonomous functions made sure he didn't topple over while there was no conscious input. He was still trying to keep at least a couple processors free for regular thought, but it was a losing battle. Until his tac-net had rationalized all his emotions and synchronized his library with them, it wouldn't let him shunt aside the calculations.

Bumblebee seemed to have caught on that there was something wrong. “Oh, scrap, sorry – didn't want to make you glitch! Didn't think that you'd – I thought you'd throw me in the brig or put me on patrol duty for the next twenty vorns or so, not that I'd make you glitch! Please, please don't lock up on me! Ratchet'll have my bolts! Forget about what I said, about interfacing, Prowl! Please!”

The words arrived in the sluggish mire of Prowl's overclocked tac-net, but they didn't help. More and more threads were running into logical inconsistencies, which meant that Prowl would have to rework his axioms for the inconsistencies to be resolved, and that took processing power.

 _/New order: Interface with Bumblebee,/_ his Agens' razor-sharp glyphs cut into Prowl's consciousness.

Like a reset, they cleared Prowl's processing space.

As long as his glitch hadn't isolated him from external input, orders could stop a melt-down for some time. Coming from a trusted source, one that Prowl had long ago added to his 'to obey' list right after Prime and Jazz, the order allowed Prowl to freeze his non-responsive threads. Obeying orders had been programmed into him at a level even deeper than the one that told him to access his emotions through his tac-net. Prowl had found out that he could sometimes use that time to prevent a full shut-down once the frozen threads inevitably resumed.

 _/Interface with Bumblebee,/_ Prowl repeated, his processors rapidly clearing as the frozen threads were temporarily swapped out. Having just gotten a respite from his own glitch, Prowl's tac-net immediately went to his Agens'. _/Can you allow that?/_

_/As long as you follow my every command, yes./_

Perfection, and interlaced with that, absolute control, were his Agens' glitches. His Agens wouldn't be able to control Bumblebee, so Prowl would have to suffice for both. It was a feasible solution. And now that he had orders, his tac-net was already rewriting the yes-no condition of 'No interfacing with normals' to a fuzzy probability. That was going to solve a large set of the logical deadlocks of his postponed glitch.

Prowl turned his optics on fretting Bumblebee and deliberately relaxed his doorwings from their locked position. “I accept your offer.”

Bumblebee froze. “Wha?”

“I accept your offer,” he repeated. “I will interface with you.”

 _/After you get off shift, the 25th joor,/_ his Agens added. _/He has a free orn./_

Bumblebee scanned him cautiously. “And you're not going to glitch on me again?”

 _/Where? Do you want to be present, or are you simply going to watch?/_ Prowl commed back to his Agens while he answered Bumblebee at the same time, “No.”

 _/I will seed storage room 4B with micro-cams,/_ his Agens replied. _/Do not tell him of my presence./_

Bumblebee frowned. “Then what was that just now?”

“I had not counted on a non-pre-programmed mech wanting to interface with a pre-programmed. I am resolving the situation at the moment, so it will not occur again in the future.”

The toy inside Prowl's valve suddenly inflated several sizes, and it was only long vorns of practice that kept any reaction from showing. His Agens' approval shone through their com-link. _/Good. I am going to monitor you until you have cleared your processors./_

_/Thank you./_

Prowl continued as if nothing had happened. “I will meet you after my shift at the entrance to B section, 25th joor. You will not tell anyone, either before or after.”

Bumblebee nodded numbly. “Yeah, sure. I'm not somebot who brags with their interface life.”

 _/Partially incorrect,/_ Prowl's Agens inserted. _/However, he has never spoken about his interface partners in a derogative manner./_

“Good,” Prowl agreed, both to Bumblebee and to what his Agens had said. “Now, I am sure you will be able to entertain yourself until then. I have a shift to finish.”

Bumblebee nodded yet again, and the yellow minibot scrambled out of Prowl's office. When the automatic door shut behind him, he was already halfway down the hallway. 

His Agens was all business, despite causing the toy inside Prowl to go wild. _/I can give you four breem to get your processing in order./_ Unless an emergency happens, was always the unspoken addition. _/You will not glitch when you interface with Bumblebee./_

 _/That will be enough./_ Prowl sent back. _/Thank you./_ Not only for watching over him, but also for his Agens risking a glitch just to help Prowl with his. 

Four breems didn't seem like much, but even this little time would practically demand a miracle from his Agens. Redirecting com-links, editing surveillance feeds – not that anyone but his Agens and maybe Jazz knew of the vid-cams in Prowl's office – and steering mechs away. Prowl had fullest confidence that none would disturb him.

 _/I am looking forward to it,/_ his Agens replied before their com-link returned to the waiting state of silent monitoring.

Prowl lost some of his tension and groaned as the buzz in his valve jumped several notches. Charge raced through him and set his interface protocols alight. Only then did he swap in the frozen threads of his postponed glitch. Almost immediately his load shot up exponentially, grabbing for any resources available. Interface protocols took up what little processing space wasn't blocked by the slowly resolving inconsistencies, and despite how Prowl hated losing control over himself like that, it was bearable with his Agens monitoring him.

He sank into a haze of burning processors and foggy charge right on the edge of overload.


	15. trick

It was only very few mechs who understood that Prowl's Agens did have a sense of humor, one that wasn't above poking fun at his glitch of unreasonable paranoia. Not something expected from Pre-progs. 

The incident with the traffic-cone in the human backpack was a prime example. His Agens had manipulated Prowl into investigating a 'breach of security' that his Agens had put there himself. And if there hadn't been a note with the backpack, not even Prowl would have known that his following conversation calming down his Agens was only a play-act.

Yes. Red Alert was tricky like that.


	16. novel

Interfacing with Bumblebee is interesting. Not in the sense of technique or because Bumblebee is a Normal – Prowl discovers quickly that interfacing with Bumblebee is exactly the same as interfacing with a Pre-prog whose glitch doesn't touch the 'facing part. Nice, but nothing extraordinary.

No. What makes things novel is the way Prowl is nothing but a conduit for his Agens' desires, moving as directed, exposing parts and reciprocating according to instructions.

And Bumblebee never knows that he 'faces a remote-controlled puppet with a feed inside its head where Prowl can watch the same ten angles Red Alert can.


	17. sheet

The next time Prowl's Agens glitches is in response to an ill-timed prank by Sideswipe – the ex-gladiator attempted to imitate the human practice of short-sheeting beds. Red Alert's processor-crash is bad enough that Ratchet immediately commandeers his still-sparking frame to the infirmary.

How the red twin managed to remove half the metal-mesh of Red Alert's berth is anyone's guess; he isn't talking. Prowl takes that as justification for being unusually harsh on Sideswipe, even if the true reason lies elsewhere: With his Agens unconscious, there is no one to dial down the vibrator egg in Prowl's valve.

At least that is what Prowl tells himself the true reason is.


	18. decay

If there is one thing that Pre-progs don't do, it is cabling up. There is too much of a chance that their individual glitches start feeding on each other, and no matter how benign a glitch might be – they all carry the danger of serious damage. 

Prowl is relatively well-adjusted, and with his Agens' help he hasn't had a complete white-out for vorns. Red Alert though is a different story. While Prowl is stable, Red Alert is decaying. It is only a matter of time until the next melt-down damages either his hardware or his software to the point where he can't function anymore.

Prowl will be there with him to the very end. It is what Pre-progs do.


	19. captain

Prowl hadn't expected Bumblebee to remain quiet after they had interfaced. However by the time he got the fifth invitation in as many joors by random mechs, he went to investigate what exactly the yellow scout had said.

“Ya serious? If I'd a known that ya do the 'facin' stuff, I'd a asked ya a long time ago!” – Jazz.

“What? You think that now that you've swapped transfluid with Bumblebee, you're too good for the rest of us minibots?” – Cliffjumper.

“I'm so sorry, Prowl, I didn't think – I just said that you don't glitch at all when interfacing, and then they all wanted to know how I know, but I didn't say anything, I swear!” – Bumblebee.

“Oh captain, my captain! Your aerodynamic form teases my optics, your commanding voice my engine! You're the dream of my fantasies, where you cuff me to my berth and have your wicked, wicked way with me!” – Sideswipe.

Prowl's tac-net had calculated only a 38-percent chance that Sideswipe would glitch if Prowl went along with his invitation. That was entirely too low a probability to risk the 82 percent chance with which the red twin would agree if Prowl actually made the offer. Suitable punishment would have to wait.

In the end, Prowl just ignored everyone like he had done before Bumblebee. And eventually, things went back to the way they had been.


	20. plug

Prowl was quite certain that the Decepticons had imagined a Pre-prog easier to hack. However, Prowl's processing was too different from normal mechs for Soundwave to read him from afar, and as soon as a mech plugged in... well, his Agens wasn't the Autobot security director for nothing. Together with Prowl's non-standard processors, his innate skill at predicting angles of attack and running several hundred thousand threads concurrently, Prowl's defenses were nigh impenetrable.

They combined hacking with physical torture. Then with rape. But even at the brink of total Energon depletion, Prowl's processors kept countering every single attack.

By the time Vortex came up with the idea of deactivating Prowl's tac-net before trying to hack him again, Prowl's frame was in such bad shape that nobody thought the sound he made was a laugh. 

Of course Prowl fought the procedure. But even as his thinking slowed with every further tactical cluster shutting down, he couldn't help an uncharacteristic smirk of satisfaction. 

It was his Pre-prog glitch that made him run his entire function over his tac-net. With his emotions, it caused uncontrollable short-outs. In his current situation though? He wished the Decepticons good luck trying to get any information from him when his tac-net, the only processors capable of accessing his memory cores, were completely shut –


	21. immigrant

After the incident with Starscream, it took a while for Red Alert to simmer down to his regular level of paranoia. The meantime was filled with Prowl investigating all kinds of security threats. 

A bomb – Hound had forgotten a crate with holoemitter parts in the rec-room. A cyber attack – Jazz had been forced to hack his own door because Red Alert had changed all security codes down to the personal ones without informing anyone. An attempt to infect the entire Ark – Teletraan1 had gotten several human spam mails to which harmless human Trojans had been attached.

However, by the time a case of illegal immigrants cropped up on the lower levels of the Ark, Prowl's Agens was back to his old form. The 'illegal immigrants' turned out to be a nest of field mice, and Red Alert had fun simulating half a nervous breakdown while he directed Prowl to catch them all – made much harder by the inflatable dildo in Prowl's valve that Red made come alive at any inopportune moment.


	22. creature

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Begin of new chapters posted on 01/03/13

After Prowl's return from his stint with the Decepticons, his Agens was quite stand-offish. Prowl had calculated with a 86 percent chance that this would be Red Alert's reaction, because there was a chance that Prowl had been compromised. It was logical; nevertheless, Prowl's emotions upon the expected reaction were predominately negative. 

That was logical, too, considering how much of a setback it was in their arrangement.

It had taken nearly three orns before Ratchet had allowed him out of the med-bay. About 64 percent of his frame had had to be replaced or temporarily removed for external repairs. His valve-spike interface had been one of them, damaged to dysfunction by Decepticon attention. 

It was one of the parts, besides his armor, that hadn't been reinstalled before being let out of med-bay. They weren't necessary for office duty and thus their repairs could wait. When Ratchet and Wheeljack were done retooling the parts, Prowl would have to return to get them reinstalled. In the meantime, he would have to contend with the permanent tactical warnings that he was very ill-protected in case of an attack, his healing protoform bare to all environmental influences over more than 80 percent of his surface.

Autobots in the hallways spoke in hushed whispers, averting their optics as soon as he looked at them. The rec-room was worse. And although Prowl was quite certain his Agens was watching his every move over the multitude of surveillance cameras seeded throughout the base, there was no contact from him.

It took a medical order from Ratchet for Prowl to leave his office after only half a shift, once again drawing gazes due to his nearly absent armor and the bared, heavily scarred protoform.

He retreated to his quarters, only all too aware that his Agens had seeded them with cameras, too. Feeds that only Red Alert knew the codes to and could monitor because he was a creature of paranoia. It had been part of their arrangement, an amendment of the privacy clause that basically gave Prowl none. His Agens' control glitch was easiest satisfied if Red Alert could check up on Prowl every single nanoklik of the orn, and Prowl hadn't had anything to hide. He had also never felt a need for privacy, so it hadn't been a sacrifice on his part.

Now, his Agens was probably watching him all the more intently, trying to spot when Prowl was going to betray them all. He had been with the Decepticons long enough for them to reprogram him, after all. Worse, he had had Soundwave connected to his ports.

With a sigh of his hydraulics and a suppressed wince as his newly retooled shoulder joint protested, Prowl laid down on his berth. Recharge would be best right now, allowing his repair nanites to reach optimal functionality.

It would probably take a long time for his Agens' glitch to accept him again at the level they had reached before Prowl's unfortunate captivity.


	23. scandal

Inferno was an interesting and fortuitous discovery. The expert in controlling chemical reactions seemed to get along with Red Alert very well, capable of handling the security director's glitch without getting impatient or offended. Better yet, Inferno could often steer Red Alert away from a full breakdown and didn't look down on preprogrammed mechs. 

So it was only logical to make sure that whenever Prowl had to leave Iacon base for some frontline outpost, Inferno was there to keep Red Alert stable.

Prowl supposed it was only inevitable that rumors started up. By the time they woke from their involuntary four-million-year stasis on earth, it was common knowledge on the Ark that Red Alert and Inferno were interfacing regularly. 

Thankfully, Inferno didn't mind the misdirection that portrayed him in a scandalous relationship with the Autobot security director, a Pre-prog. Inferno's close acquaintance with Red Alert had made it necessary to tell him about the arrangement, and Inferno had found it fascinating. In both a scientific and a not-so-scientific fashion. 

It was only too easy to hash out a secondary contract that defined Inferno's role in relation to Prowl and Red Alert's primary arrangement. Inferno was more than content to remain a silent watcher, which was fortuitous because Prowl had no desire for a Normal interfacing partner, and Inferno could not submit to the power exchange necessary to make Red Alert an alternate solution. In return for Inferno's continued silence about whatever he learned from them about Pre-progs, their glitches, and how they dealt with them, Prowl didn't mind the additional observer.

And if the rumors about Red Alert's and Inferno's relationship were being fed by Red Alert plugging into Inferno to share the feed of whatever vid-cam just happened to observe Prowl edging towards an overload – well, that was just another layer of deception.


	24. critic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The update of 01/03/2013 start at chapter 22 with 'Creature'

When Prowl returned to his quarters from Med-bay after finally getting the last of his repaired parts reinstalled, his spike-valve interface, he was surprised to find his Agens waiting for him inside.

It was the first time he had seen Red Alert since Prowl had been captured by the Decepticons, and he was surprised that it was happening like this. In person, in close quarters, without any visible deterrent nearby should Prowl prove to be hostile after all.

Red Alert's horns were sparking slightly and he was wringing his hands, pacing up and down. It was a sure indicator that it wouldn't take much for the glitch to take complete hold of him. Prowl only stepped inside far enough to let the automatic door close behind him and then waited motionlessly. He did not want to endanger Red Alert's obvious attempt to push past his glitch.

His Agens continued pacing, not throwing him a glance. But Prowl wasn't fooled. Red Alert had seen him and had noticed him; he just chose not to react just yet. In a sense, it was a sign of how much his Agens still trusted him, because Red Alert would never turn his attention off a threat.

Suddenly, the security commander turned to him, optics brighter than healthy. “Do you want to continue our arrangement?”

“Yes.” After all, his Agens hadn't asked him whether Prowl thought they should, or even what he thought Red Alert's opinion was.

The relaxing of his Agens' frame was incongruent with Prowl's expectations until he added variables that went beyond the immutable constant of Red Alert's glitch. Should there be an emotional attachment stronger than the paranoia glitch, then it would make sense to feel relief at a continued relationship. Had Red Alert not approached him earlier because he had been afraid Prowl would want to terminate their association?

His Agens drew himself up again, standing straight. “Since the arrangement still holds, I am invoking the special circumstances clause. Do you need any modifications, temporary or permanent, of the contract?”

The special circumstances clause covered the possibility of new negotiations if something fundamental had changed. Which prolonged rape and torture at the hands of Decepticons might have. 

Contrary to the mutual amendments clause, the special circumstances clause temporarily invalidated the entire arrangement as soon as the clause was invoked, until they came to an agreement. It was there to make sure that neither party felt pressured during negotiations by existing clauses in the contract. 

Prowl vented slowly and still didn't make a move towards his Agens-who-was-not-his-Agens-at-the-moment. Red Alert's horns were sparking heavier, but the mech wasn't crashing yet. After so long in their arrangement, it felt strange to be doing negotiations on an equal level once again. He would have been content with a verbal agreement inside their contract, but maybe the negotiations weren't only for Prowl's benefit.

“I do not project there to be any problem with spike-valve stimulation per se,” he began with his most important concern. “However I would like to set a stop-clause for the next three deca-orns with rights to negotiate a longer period if necessary. My self-examinations have returned a 18 percent chance that I might react negatively to either a prolonged charge or exceeding stimulation.”

“Define stop-clause.”

Prowl let his tac-net calculate the best wording which would generate the most satisfaction for both of them. “When I com you a pre-agreed stop-word, I expect an immediate cessation of charge-inducing activities from you and the permission to react as I see fit, which includes removing any object and switching off my sensory feeds. It will be outside the power-dynamics clause in the sense that there will be no repercussions should I choose to go against your instructions after the clause has been invoked. However, you may ask an explanation as soon as I am in a fully cognizant state of processor. Should either my explanation be unsatisfactory or I have used the stop-word for the same reason more than three times, the special circumstances clause will be reinvoked.”

Red Alert cocked his head, but thankfully the discharges of his sensory horns grew less. “The stop-clause may only be invoked to ensure the physical and psychological health clause is kept.”

“Agreed.” Prowl finalized the wording and sent the new clause to Red Alert, who accepted it with a brief nod. Both of them worked it into their copy of the contract. Prowl continued, “The changed conditions of my new valve-spike array should fall under the already existing health clause; my physical and psychological limits may have changed.”

“Naturally.” Red Alert nodded regally, not moving his optics from Prowl. “There will be no hard-line interfacing.”

They never had, anyway. It was too dangerous for two pre-progs. So it was no trouble to solidify it into a written clause. Within less than ten nanokliks, they had drawn up, agreed upon, and added the corresponding modification to their contract.

However, it was a sign of what was to come – Prowl's assumptions on the trust issue had not been wrong.

Red Alert kept staring at him as he laid out his next condition. “And I would prefer it if someone monitored our physical encounters for the next decaorns.”

Although Prowl understood the need for security, the strength of his emotional response nearly left him glitching. Thankfully, Red Alert gave him time to work through it. It took three breems until Prowl's tac-net was satisfied it had elicited the reasons for his over-the-top reaction. “I am not comfortable with having a Normal close while I am charged.” Not when they knew he was charged. Not when they were watching him, waiting for just the right moment until the charge overwhelmed his firewalls and he was left defenseless.

It was an illogical reaction. But in front of the trauma he had so recently endured, it was one his tac-net could understand. Also, he had always separated Normals and interfacing, the experiment with Bumblebee aside. With all the strain of not being certain how his traumatic experience had shaped his emotional landscape, he wanted to keep things as simple as possible. He was certain he would come close to glitching often enough anyway, as his reaction just now had showed.

Red Alert cocked his head. “Remote monitoring of my functional parameters, like Inferno is doing right now?”

This time, the glitch was far less critical because Prowl had already discerned the reasons for his emotional response. It was entirely logical that Red Alert had turned to the chemical specialist for stability while Prowl was unavailable. That was the very reason Prowl had made sure to assign Inferno to Iacon base. 

He reset a couple of parameters to make the situation more acceptable. “Remote monitoring, of you only. He mustn't interfere unless he believes it necessary, and he needs to keeps silent about it. I do not desire a repeat of Bumblebee, especially not now.”

“A subsidiary contract to our arrangement?”

Prowl vented harshly, both unbalanced by the idea of drawing a Normal into something so completely Pre-prog, and relieved at having a familiar structure to cling to. It would be so much easier if there was another Pre-prog on base. “Does he know enough to understand what signing a subsidiary contract means and what will be expected of him?”

“No.”

But he would probably learn, if Prowl's predictions of Inferno's curiosity and his projected task were correct. “There will be a silence clause in the contract.”

“Agreed.”

The silence clause would be useless should Inferno decide to not heed it. It was less than useless, actually, because Inferno would be able to break the contract without consequences. 'Contract-breaker' was no social stigma amongst Normals. It spoke volumes of Red Alert's trust in Inferno's integrity to suggest a contract with him nonetheless.

“You will make the contract with him,” Prowl finally decided. “I reserve the right to veto additional clauses affecting me directly or indirectly. He will not be allowed to know or do anything but monitor your functional parameters until the contract has been drawn.”

Red Alert nodded, the sparking of his sensory horns almost completely gone. “Acceptable. Are there any other modifications, either to our contract or the subsidiary one, that we need to discuss?”

“No. The special circumstances clause has been satisfied for me.”

“Very well.” Red Alert straightened and became even calmer. “The arrangement has been reinstated as of now, pending contractual negotiations with Inferno.”

Prowl didn't know whether it was those long vorns spent in their arrangement, but he felt inordinately relieved to be back in familiar territory. His plates loosened and his fields calmed.

His Agens was back.


	25. other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Begin update 13/02/15

For a while after their activation, Prowl had watched the dinobots critically. They were no pre-programmed mechs, Wheeljack assured him. Any pre-spark coding in their chambers was minimal and only designed to help with the integration of their... unusual frames. 

However, there were some signs. Their limited processing capabilities. Their exclusive focus on destruction over rationality. Their incomplete, rudimentary personalities. The chance that Ratchet and Wheeljack had deliberately built them this way, was in the one-percent range.

They showed no processor- or frame-damaging glitches though. And they had each other. 

Until that changed, Prowl and his Agens would simply observe.


	26. massage

“On the berth, on your back,” his Agens suddenly commanded, watching him sharply like a cyber-hawk.

Prowl complied wordlessly, his gait as smooth as it could be with the occasional error of refitted parts still pinging up.

“Open your interface.”

He bared the new parts, irrational apprehension entering his processors. But there was no hardline, no attempts to hack him.

His Agens ran a careful digit around the valve rim, across the spike still hidden in its housing. When Prowl didn't react negatively, the digit forewent the spike and focused solely on massaging the valve opening. After applying some medical lubricant, Red Alert pressed against the calipers there, systematically explored texture, resilience, integrity, sensitivity of the equipment. And ever so slowly, he worked his way inward.

Ah. Just like his Agens had done at the very beginning of their arrangement.

Prowl turned off his optics and let his doorwings absorb his Agens' unique fields. Their usual multi-threaded panic was focused by a smooth excitement that could only come from a pre-prog whose actions, code, and spark were in complete synchronicity. 

It would take time for Red Alert to work his way through Prowl's entire valve like that.


	27. benefit

While most of their interactions were ruled by their arrangement and their professional relationship, there were moments when neither applied.

In those rare instances that neither of them was on duty or getting ready to interface, they played strategy games over comm. Conquest, Invasion -- later on, after meeting the humans, also multidimensional chess and Go. Prowl enjoyed those purely academic exertions of his tac-net. His Agens, too, benefited from them. If not for Red Alert's glitch and the hyper-sensitive sensor suite, he could have been a tactician on Prowl's level.

Sometimes, it was nice to have an equal opponent.


	28. chips

“Prowl. How are you?” 

The Praxian finished drawing his cube of energon from the dispenser in the rec-room, and then turned to meet Optimus Prime's optics. “I am fully functional. Chip's intervention has allowed me to fight the virus off, and Ratchet has purged it completely.”

The Prime looked at him, fields extending in a comforting caress. “I am glad to hear you are physically well. But what about your relationship with Red Alert?”

Prowl's doorwings stiffened in surprise, the lifting of small panels towards the bottom showing just how much Prime had caught him off-guard. He had thought that no mech except for Inferno knew about... But of course, this was Prime. At least there was no other bot in the rec-room to hear their exchange; while he wasn't ashamed of the arrangement, he considered it a private matter.

He straightened. “Our arrangement has not dissolved, if that is what you mean. We simply have not had the time yet to renegotiate the contract terms.”

Prime frowned. “And what about _your_ needs?”

“Are being met.” 

After his first stay in Decepticon care, and the subsequent uncertainty, they had added clauses for exactly such a case. Should none of them invoke the special circumstances clause, then their arrangement would automatically continue on limited terms until Red Alert's glitch allowed him to approach Prowl again. 

But as fresh as the hack was, his Agens was incapable of resuming their interactions immediately. Right now, the limited terms dictated that there was to be no physical contact between them, a concession to Red Alert. In exchange, Prowl had full rights to refuse all commands from his Agens without it activating any of the punishment or dissolution clauses. 

Prowl took a long drink from his cube, trying to estimate why Prime had cornered him. Finally, he decided that there were too many unknowns to be able to get any of his hypotheses onto a passable level of significance. He vented. “What is it you wish to know, Prime?”

Prime gave Prowl a long look while drawing himself his own cube. Finally, he sighed. “I did not want to say anything originally, but you should know what it looks from the outside. You are in a relationship with Red Alert, a very exclusive one that does not seem to allow you any external interface partners. Red Alert, on the other hand, has Inferno, and seems to abandon you right at those times when most bots need the support of partners or lovers the most. I do not want you to be taken advantage of.”

Prowl's processors struggled with an unexpected flash of amusement next to the anticipated surprise and gratitude for the concern. However, the amusement was easily explained. While Prime was right when observing from an outside perspective, he was operating on the assumption of Preprogrammed having the same interface conventions as Normals. It was amusing to see what misconceptions the discrepancy could generate. Additionally, it was amusing that Prime thought he had to protect Prowl.

Two nanokliks later than if the amusement hadn't interrupted him, Prowl was able to formulate an answer. “While I appreciate your concern, Prime, the arrangement sees to it that the needs of both parties are met and that both have a maximum gain from the relationship. There is no bot being taken advantage of.” He finished his cube and dispersed it, eager to get back to work. “Now, if that was all?”

Prime did not seem satisfied with Prowl's reassurance, but he nodded. “Yes, that was all. However, should you find that you have needs that cannot be met by your... arrangement, I am always here for you.”

Prowl nodded and did not know how he managed to leave the rec-room without crashing right on the spot. The implications that _Prime_ of all mechs would want to interface with him...

Red Alert's comm sent a brief spike of clarity into his rapidly clouding processors. /I heard. I will see to it that you remain undisturbed./

With the way his emotive processing drowned out everything else, it was a miracle that Prowl managed to ping back an unfocused _thanks/gratitude_. By the time his office door closed behind him, he was nearly insensate. Relieved, he sunk into his chair and fought his glitch.


	29. cripple

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The update of 13/02/15 starts at Chapter 25: other

There were servos on his doorwings. His Agens' servos that squeezed and manipulated the extremely sensitive lower edges.

Prowl focused on his temperature distribution, increasing the coolant flow in processor-close lines, reducing it in far areas. It was an interesting exercise that helped stave off overload. The rough handling of his sensors had hurt in the beginning, but the constant stimulation had decreased their sensitivity just enough that the pleasure was maximized.

“Extend your spike,” his Agens instructed, and Prowl bit back a whimper.

Then the servos were on his spike, and more crippling pleasure bloomed through his sensor-net.


	30. sole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Start update 2013/03/24

When Prowl entered the medbay, it was First Aid and not Ratchet who greeted him. The question of where Ratchet was, was easily answered though – Prowl's doorwings were fairly bombarded with the excited emissions of two mechs close to overload. The only interesting fact to note was that the other mech was Prime. A very enthusiastic Prime, by the feel of things.

First Aid, probably well aware of what and who his mentor was doing in his office, maybe even how, had the air of a mech who was forcibly keeping himself calm and ignoring everything not in the immediate vicinity. “Hello, Prowl, what can I do for you?”

Prowl nodded back in greeting. “Hello First Aid. I am suffering from a minor malfunction. According to my internal diagnostics, my valve lubrication system is online and functional. However, neither manual release nor being charged to the point of overload produce any lubricant.”

The protectorbot twitched, his fields flaring with embarrassment before he managed to force them into a professional calm. Prowl had observed similar behavior with many of the earth-built bots, and even some of the younger Cybertronians like Hot Rod and Bumblebee: they became uncomfortable as soon as interfacing equipment was mentioned.

“Is this the first time you have experienced such... difficulties?” First Aid asked, a bit strained.

“Negative. My valve-spike interface had to be rebuilt many vorns ago, and it never integrated as well as my old one. Occasional malfunctions of a non-priority level have occurred ever since.”

First Aid's fields flared with curiosity as to what had necessitated a rebuilding of his interface array, but after a moment embarrassed arousal worked itself into his electromagnetics. It was an illogical reaction to accessing Prowl's medical records of the incidence, so he assumed that First Aid had constructed a scenario where Prowl had somehow managed to wear out his parts through repeated and vigorous interfacing. Like Ratchet and Prime were currently doing in Ratchet's office.

Prowl wondered whether First Aid was aware of just what it took to destroy a valve to the point it had to be rebuilt instead of simply letting medical nanites take care of the occasional over-enthusiastic abrasion.

“Ah, yes, alright.” First Aid tried to gather his processor threads again. “Do you know whether it is a mechanical failure, or a programming one?”

“A bit of both. My abdominal reflex cluster has not been replaced together with the valve, and it sometimes has trouble operating the hardware correctly. At the moment, I cannot even run the diagnostics whether the problem lies in a lack of lubricant production, or whether it simply is not released, because the processors report back my equipment as fully functional.”

Another twitch from First Aid, which turned into an out-right flinch when the static of Ratchet overloading seeped into med-bay. “Uh, I'm not sure if I know how to treat something like that – I have just started studying the abdominal reflex cluster and all the functions it controls.” Another twitch as Prime's electromagnetics followed. “I mean, I can try,” First Aid continued hastily, “but I don't want to do anything wrong, and it would be best if Ratchet was here.”

Prowl was quite certain that First Aid's insecurity about his medical skills was not the sole reason for the denial, as First Aid looked close to bolting. Both from the topic of conversation, and from his mentor's excited fields.

“Very well,” Prowl acceded, “I will come back when Ratchet is free. Thank you for your time.”

“No problem. And sorry I couldn't help.” 

Through the relief flooding First Aid's fields, the second part of his response sounded entirely insincere. Prowl did not mention it; however, it was going to go into his report to Ratchet. The medic would be in a better position to tell him whether First Aid's, and all the other young Cybertronians' erratic behavior at the mention of interfacing, was normal.


	31. attractor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blame femme4jack for the idea, even if it isn't quite what she wanted :)

/Would you like to share Prime’s berth?/

His Agens’s comm call interrupted Prowl just as he was about to get up from his desk and go to the rec-room for some energon. It had been three orns since his conversation with Prime, and Red Alert and he were still on limited terms -- no physical contact, not even being in the same room for their recreational activities. Which did not mean though that Prowl had not already overloaded today to his Agens’s instructions and Inferno watching. /Why do you ask?/

After Bumblebee, the idea of interfacing with Normals wasn’t that bad of a glitch trigger, wasn’t that unthinkable anymore, but this was _Prime_. Prowl sat back down in his office chair and dedicated all his attention to his Agens’s comm, preparing himself for a conversation that would inevitably tax his tac-net to the extreme.

/Because he is Prime. You can do a hardline with him./

It was good he was already sitting. The jump in his capacity utilization would have made it hard to do anything but stop dead in his tracks. /You are assuming I want a hardline./

/Do you not?/

Hardlining was for connecting to unsentient mainframes, or for medical reasons. Normals, however, could also use it to interface with each other because they didn’t have any of the sparking glitches that made the practice so dangerous for Preprogs.

But did he want to try it out?

He did not ask whether Red Alert’s glitch would be able to allow Prowl such an intimate connection to someone outside their arrangement. Otherwise, Red Alert wouldn’t have suggested the action.

Prowl’s tac-net was running hot analyzing his emotions, but he was still composed enough that a true processor-freeze was a while off yet. Nonetheless he was grateful that he was alone in his office and could focus completely on the calculations.

There was incredulity stemming from deep-seated core coding that Preprogs did not interface with Normals; curiosity for exploring what others found so pleasurable; nervousness of opening himself up to hacking attempts, even though he knew that Prime would never do something like that; surprise that his Agens of all mechs was alright with Prowl hardlining to another mech; pleasure that Prime liked him well enough to suggest an interface; spark-deep certainty that declared Prime a super-attractor in the iterative function of life; and a fear-laced excitement towards exploring something that had been described as exceedingly pleasurable by all sources he had consulted.

After analyzing his emotions, he treated them as variables for his tactical calculations, whether it would be beneficial for him to try hardlining with Prime, and in the end the positive aspects dominated. /I would not be averse,/ he finally commed back to his Agens.

Pleased glyphs came back, and Prowl had received them often enough during the heights of pleasure that the link to charge racing through his lines was nearly automatic.

Another message arrived at his comm. /And what if I were hardlined to Prime at the same time?/ The subglyphs indicated that his Agens intended to use Prime as a buffer to reduce the possibility of their glitches feeding on each other.

This time, Prowl’s tac-net thankfully could draw on the conclusions and emotional mappings it had already created for the suggestion of Prowl hardlining with Prime alone. He was grateful that his Agens had presented the request to him in parts, because he was quite certain his tac-net would not have been able to handle the sudden influx of emotions otherwise. How long had Red alert been considering the idea of hardlining? Connecting via a hub was certainly a novel suggestion. /Why have you not suggested the same with Inferno as middle mech?/

/Inferno?!/ The glyph modifiers spoke of a surprise that had never even considered Inferno a possible candidate. /He is not Prime! Also, it was not Inferno who doubted us./

So his Agens’s request contained another layer of purpose, next to enabling them to link up. Question was, would it be enough to convince Prime? Or would they get caught in the basin of Prime’s attraction?

/Very well,/ he finally acknowledged. /As long as Prime agrees./

The response back wasn’t so much glyphs as elated frequency modulations. /Good,/ his Agens purred. /If everything goes well, the limited terms will go back to full contract after that. Now, you will overload yourself at least twice before leaving this office./

The offhand command to pleasure himself was nothing new in their arrangement. However, Prowl couldn’t quite suppress the charged shiver that ran through his doorwings. Red Alert’s shift ended in a breem, and while it was very rare that his Agens left the surveillance room when his shift was over, there was still the chance that he stopped monitoring the hallways for surprise visits to Prowl’s office.

With his fans igniting into an excited spin, he got to it.


	32. loop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update of 2013/03/24 starts with chapter 30 - sole

/Report to med-bay./

Prowl frowned at nothing, because he had long ago foregone screens and input terminals in favor of jacking directly into the mainframe of their Iacon Tactical section. /I am free in three joor,/ he sent back to the mech that had disturbed his calculations of the best way to route and protect their supply lines.

Motherboard, head of Iacon Medical, blarped static back at him. /If I wanted to see you in three joor, I would have _said_ three joor! Get your fraggin’ aft to medbay! Now!/

There was only one possible reaction left. /Yes, sir./

Silently he instructed the mainframe to take care of several permutation cycles in his absence, hoping he would be back before it finished. His tactical calculations were urgent and time-consuming enough that idle states were to be avoided at all costs.

Three nanokliks after Motherboard’s interruption, Prowl unplugged from the terminal and headed towards Medical, emitting a priority frequency that seemed to be warranted judging by Motherboard’s urgency.

When he requested entry to medbay, he was immediately forwarded to a sub-room off the main bay. Upon coming closer, he could already hear the static squeals of a fritzing mech. He hastened his pede steps. The door opened at his identity ping, and revealed a scene of chaos.

There was a red and white mech on a berth, being held down by two medical aids while Motherboard tried to hardline him. Sparks were erupting all along his frame, up to and including large and finely crafted sensor horns that shorted out against the medical berths in bright arcs of electricity. It had to be incredibly painful -- that is, if the mech was still capable of processing sensory input. The mech’s digits scrabbled for a hold, any hold, even as his back struts bowed and arched as he fought against being restrained. The only reason he could only be held down was that the static scrambled his motor relays.

Prowl had never seen the mech before. What was striking, was the big Autobot brand on his chest -- not a prisoner or a failed interrogation then. However, he hadn’t been informed that there had been an attack within their base, either. Was it a command-level decision to keep this quiet?

/Motherboard?/ he pinged the medic, not certain why he had been called. Prowl was forced to use comms, as another static squeal from the mech would have drowned out his voice entirely.

Motherboard replied in kind, even as he shouted for the apprentices to _fragging hold the mech down_. /Tell me what I’m supposed to do with a glitchhead like him!/ The medic cursed as another discharge zapped his medical plug painfully, preventing him from forming a connection. Contrary to the malfunctioning mech, Motherboard certainly did feel the painful electric arcs.

Prowl frowned for real, unable to come up with either a solution to the problem, or a reason why Motherboard had fetched him. He was not even sure what exactly Motherboard was asking of him, medical advice or permission to... what? Discharge the mech? Do a reformat? Other core-code deep manipulations? But if that was the case, Prowl certainly wasn’t the right contact person. He finally went with the easiest interpretation. /I do not have medical programming./

/But you’re a preprogrammed!/

Prowl rebooted his optics. Motherboard seemed to have no knowledge of preprogrammed mechs at all. /I have been programmed for tactical operations, not for medical. I cannot help you there./

The medic snarled as another discharge shorted out against his plug before he could connect to a ventral or thoracic socket. /There’s no other Preprog in the Autobots here in Iacon except for you, and I haven’t seen you glitch like this. Tell me if that’s normal!/

The only conclusion Prowl could come to was that the fritzing mech was preprogrammed, too, and that he was having a serious malfunction, maybe caught in a sensory overload loop. Probably due to a sparking glitch. But maybe he had been hacked. Or attacked. Or something else had happened to him. Prowl’s tac-net could come up with more than a dozen situations that could result in similar symptoms. But shouldn’t Motherboard know more about such medical complications than him? Then again, it seemed that Motherboard had only fetched him as an expert on Preprogrammed behavior, and that was a function he could try to perform.

/What is his designation?/ Sometimes, the designation could give away pertinent character traits of a mech, which might indicate how they would react in certain situations. /What purpose has he been sparked for?/

/Red Alert, our new security manager. Don’t know what he’s been sparked for. Why?/ Motherboard asked absently as he instructed his aides to try and turn the mech so that he could get better access to the cervical port as that one seemed to be the only one not shorting continuously.

Once again, Prowl had to reboot his optics. /You are not familiar with the process that generates preprogrammed? Conflict between pre-impregnated code and what the spark writes into the spark chamber, can result in irreversible, core-deep glitches. Those glitches can either be triggered by performing the preprogrammed function where the coding has been overwritten, or by performing a function which the preprogrammed coding disagrees with. What triggered him?/

Motherboard snorted. /No idea. He was constructing a security plan for the city defense when he glitched./

/A hack?/

/If it was a hack, do you think I wouldn’t have known by now?/

The red and white mech continued fighting, and it was only due to his uncoordinated flailing that they managed to keep him down. The wildly flaring optics probably didn’t see anything.

/Do a cold reboot,/ Prowl finally advised. With a glitch this severe, and due to unidentified causes, this was the only sure-fire method. It was akin to pulling the plug of a mainframe without shutting it down first. It led to corrupted data, fragmentation, and one pit of a processor ache, but sometimes that was the only way that worked.

Motherboard glared at him, but didn’t protest. The red and white mech fought the medical plug, but Motherboard finally forced it through the static and connected. Red Alert fell limp as if his motor control had been yanked out. His optics dimmed slowly from their overcharged flare, and the noise of his straining servos fell away. Everything was eerily silent.

Deciding that Motherboard had things under control, Prowl let himself out.

Should Red Alert want to meet him, it would best be done under non-medical circumstances.


	33. ring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update 2013/06/03 starts here

“Open.”

Prowl opened his interface panel and let his Agens look his fill. Red Alert’s optics were fastened to the nearly wrist-thick dilation of the valve entrance, caused by a thick spike-imitate vibrator. Red Alert reached out, traced the tight ring. Prowl suppressed a shiver.

“And you have transformed with something this large inside you before?” his Agens asked thoughtfully.

The incidence of chasing after the Twins like that was burned thoroughly into his memory files. “Yes.”

“Show me.”

There was a hungry gleam in his Agens’s optics, fields churning with a fascinated focus that twisted right into arousal.

Prowl got up from the berth, and began folding into his alt-mode. There was a small hitch in his transformation when several of his internals had to be rearranged and partway shunted sideways in higher dimensions to make room for the heavily expanded valve complex in real-space. This change to his transformation sequence was necessary, because contrary to his internals, the fake spike in his valve could not handle being subspaced. It was remote controlled, and the receiver was only capable of dealing with the real-space spectrum of the radio waves. A trans-dimensional receiver would be far too expensive to install in such a simple toy.

Finally down to alt-mode, Prowl shifted a bit to get used to the unusual sensation of his spike-filled valve nested so close to his spark chamber that they touched.

He could feel the strong scans his Agens ran over his form, focused especially on the way his internals were arranged. Several were quite invasive, exciting Prowl’s atoms with the harsh magnetic fields used. Others pried across the dimensional barrier, picking at the axis Prowl had shifted his internals along, until the quantum state told Red Alert exactly about the subspace arrangements. Prowl had long ago given his Agens the exact angle of his own private subspace dimension.

His alt-mode came only about thigh high on Red Alert, comfortable for his Agens to rest his servo on. Normally, Red Alert wasn’t much for touching, but now he seemed to be incapable of keeping away. He traced the shape of Prowl’s valve nearly a mechano-meter beneath on his roof top, scans still strong enough to make every single one of Prowl’s atoms vibrate.

“Now hold still.”

And the fake spike came to life. Dimly, Prowl thought that the intensity of Red Alert’s scans meant he could watch how his stuffed valve trembled against his spark chamber and set cascades of pleasure through completely unrelated circuitry.

“I want to watch you overload merely from this.”


	34. alarm

“Prowl. Come in, please.”

Prime’s warm fields greeted him as he pinged the door of Prime’s private quarters. “Thank you. Is Red Alert here already?”

Prime flicked his shoulder plate in a negative gesture. “He was delayed and will join us later. But come in, have a seat. Some energon?”

Prowl shook his head to the energon, but took the offered seat. “I fuelled up just before coming here, so I do not require any sustenance right now. Later perhaps. Do you know how much longer Red Alert will be?”

At the same time, he sent a ping to his Agens, but only received a busy-please-try-again-later automatic response. It had to be quite important what Red Alert was doing to be late to an appointment with Prime.

“I don’t,” Prime said and sat down in another chair. “I was only informed that he would be by whenever circumstances permitted, but that we could start without him if we desired to.”

Prowl frowned internally. His Agens had been the main driving force behind the arrangement to hardline via Prime, and now he was absent? But they could use the time to get the technical details out of the way. “I would be grateful if you could explain how a three-way connection with you as hub is going to work.”

Prime chuckled. “The only difference is that I will act as load-balancer so that it seems to all of us as if we were connected to each other.”

“And what about the individual connections?”

“What about them?”

The confusion in Prime’s fields was off-putting. It seemed that either Red Alert had failed to mention the peculiarities of their situation -- which Prowl doubted -- or Prime had not taken into account the full ramifications of Preprog-existence. “Because the extent of my experience is limited to mainframe and medical connections.”

“You have never hardlined for pleasure before?” Prime sounded downright incredulous.

“Negative.” Not even Red Alert had, although he regularly shared feeds of Prowl in varying states of arousal with Inferno. However, connecting to Inferno involved no merging of thoughtshells or exchange of charge, simply a more secure way of communication compared to wireless transmission.

There was a long, drawn-out exvent before Prime’s surprise dissolved into calm acceptance. “Very well. I assume you know the theory though, yes? Ventral or thoracic port, outer thoughtshells only unless you want to go further than a simple ‘face, a fifty-fifty split for sending and receiving, and a 10e charge line.”

Yes, Prowl had assimilated accounts of hardline ‘facing experiences before; however the interfacing parameters he had extrapolated from them had differed too widely to use for a guideline. Prime’s clear directives were appreciated. “Affirmative. Which configuration do you find preferable?”

Prime smiled. “For the beginning, I think ventral ports would be best. Plug into me so that you have final control.”

A port cover on Prime’s lower right torso opened, and Prowl briefly scanned the socket beneath. Then he nodded and transformed his upper left ventral port into a plug that would fit Prime’s dimensions.

Ports were nothing more than the end point of a cable bundle that went from various internal points of interest, like data busses or energy lines, to the frame surface. Depending on the composition of the bundle, connections over those ports were more or less intimate. The neck one went directly to the main processor line, ideal for medical access and hacking attempts. Ventral and thoracic ports went to lesser processors, with the option of splicing energy feeds into the cable.

The actual endpoint of a port, the connector, could be transformed into whichever setting desired, plug or socket. Since it was easier to resize a plug than a socket, the one plugging did the size adjustments, whereas the socket provided the base connection configuration properties like how many pins were for data input, how many for data output, and how many for energy.

Prowl handed Prime his reconfigured plug, doorwings rising sharply when Prime made no move to take it but instead turned a bit so that his socket was well within Prowl’s reach.

With far more care than he would have taken with a mainframe, Prowl inserted the connector. It was strange to feel the socket shift minutely around him, arranging itself so that the sending and receiving pins were united with their proper partners. With a mainframe, that would have been Prowl’s task. Then the plug slid home, and the first handshake-protocol bits went through. Within half a microklik this was done, and data started to stream.

//Prowl?//

//Yes.//

It was strange to feel data being sent to him without him having requested it or having subscribed to a feed. All hardline experience he’d had so far consisted of situations with strict protocol, either medical or mainframe work. In every case, his role had been clearly defined. Completely passive for medical, and active for the mainframe. (He did not allow himself to think of the one hacking attempt.) Here though, he was not certain what was expected from him.

//Try applying communications protocols,// Prime suggested. //The merging of thoughtshells can come later, once you are more comfortable.//

Communications protocols were safe, and something every bot knew. They applied to every comm connection, no matter by which means.

// Thank you.// Prowl pinged his Agens and once again didn’t receive an answer except for that busy ‘do not disturb’ notice. He frowned. //I apologize, Red Alert seems to take some more time.//

// I don’t mind. Was it your idea or his that he join us today?//

Prowl’s frown deepened. It could have been mere assumption; however Prime’s words indicated a high probability that he still didn’t trust Prowl’s reassurance that Red Alert wasn’t exploiting him in any way. He sent his exasperation over the hardline. //It was his idea that I interface with you today.//

Surprise flashed through Prime’s fields. // So if he hadn’t pressured you into it, you would not be here?//

//Prime. If he had not offered to join in, I would not be here.//

//What?//

Oh, honestly. Prime was getting downright ridiculous, with his insistence of wanting to protect Prowl. //I would not have accepted your offer of interfacing if Red Alert had not expressed a wish to experience a hardline interface.//

//So you don’t want to be here after all.// Prime sounded hurt. Personally hurt, but it was nearly eclipsed by a horror that Prowl had been forced here.

Prowl ran several possible answers through his tac-net to find one his Prime wouldn’t be able to twist into his malformed view of the situation. If that did not work, there was not going to be a hardline, no matter how much his Agens was interested in experimenting. //I do want a hardline interface, but only if Red Alert is part of the hardline interface, too. I am very well satisfied with Red Alert as my only interface partner; however, I do not mind indulging Red Alert’s curiosity. Your offer to interface sparked his interest, and so this meeting was arranged. It was Red Alert who approached you, so do not tell me that you did not know that both of us would be present. If you cannot accept that, I will terminate this connection now.//

There was silence over the hardline, and a pensive Prime mulling over events. Finally, there was a flicker of chagrin. //You really are content with Red Alert as your sole interface partner, are you not?//

//I am.// Prowl made sure that the entire certainty of a tac-net backed emotion was available for Prime to sample.

Prime actually winced. // Then I am afraid you will get quite a few unwanted offers. I might have been a bit obvious in trying to talk to you alone.//

It was not dread that welled in Prowl’s processors. Connections fell into place for Prowl’s tac-net. With a ninety-seven percent likelihood, Red Alert was currently absent because of something Prime had arranged. // What did you do?// He sincerely hoped that Prime had not been cruel enough to force Red Alert to glitch.

//I might have indicated to Inferno that he ought to keep Red Alert busy because I desired some alone time with you. I admit, I might have implied that interfacing was what I intended both for him and us.//

Prowl blinked. //Inferno, you say?//

Did Prime know of the extension of the contract with Inferno? He sincerely doubted that Inferno would have followed Prime’s instructions without informing Red Alert. So Red Alert must have played along with the deception, apparently changing his mind about wanting a hardline interface with Prime as hub. On a suspicion, he pinged his Agens, this time with a request for the feeds for the surveillance cameras in Prime’s quarters. And, ‘lo and behold, nested in the expected ‘busy’ notice, there were two link-bundles.

The first indeed led to Prime’s cameras -- he hadn’t been aware that Red Alert had installed five of them in addition to the two official ones. The second... well, it was clear now why his Agens was so distracted. Inferno stood in front of one of the consoles of the security room, servos on top of the panel, pedes spread a bit for stability. His entire frame was trembling, his plates visibly lifted so that as much circulation as possible could reach his protoform. Small distortions of the air just above his plates showed just how much heat he radiated into the environment.

Part of the second link bundle was not only visual, but also auditory and, to his surprise, the frequency of whatever remote-controlled toy Red Alert was teasing Inferno with. There _was_ a camera angle that showed the heat of Inferno’s interface panel -- infrared was fairly glowing -- but it was closed to trap whatever was inside. Only a bit of valve lubricant leaked out through the seams.

//Prowl?//

Optimus’ question through the hardline was almost like a cold reboot. Prowl had automatically opened the feeds behind firewalls where the hardline had no access. So, to Prime, Prowl’s sudden heating must have been unexpected. However, to Prowl, it was unexpected that not his entire increase in core temperature derived from the arousing sight of watching a mech trying to fight off pleasure and knowing exactly what Inferno felt at Red Alert’s behest. There were more emotions involved than he had expected, and his tac-net was starting to run the routines to identify and analyze them. And, like it always did, it greedily grabbed resources without any regard for regular processing schedules. It was only a matter of time until he froze.

Prowl sighed internally. His glitch had acted up so often that even the horror of feeling his entire consciousness slow down was well-known and did not impede his recovery further. //I am afraid I will have to decline for today,// he sent back to Prime, keeping a critical monitor on his processor use. The load was rising by the nanoklik. He already felt how his thinking process got more sluggish when a first brief result suggested that jealousy was part of the emotional mixture he felt. This was going to be harder than anticipated.

//Are you alright?// Prime asked, concerned. //Is the hardline too much for you to bear?//

He grimly locked his joints and dialed down all his sensory input so that more of his processing power was freed. //I am having an unexpected reaction to Inferno’s way of keeping Red Alert occupied. I --//

Inferno _screamed_ in the auditory feed, arching backwards, clawing his digits into the panel in a desperate attempt not to remove them from the console. His knees buckled, making Inferno sink slowly to the ground -- servos still on the console, helmet leaned against the front panel. “Red, _please_ \--”

//Prowl?// It was like wading through a mire of quicksilver, to draw his attention back to Prime. Too much of his tac-net was preoccupied with his emotions, and reality was starting to get crowded out. His optics struggled to focus on Prime’s concerned facial plates. It was getting downright impossible to determine whether it was a good idea to tell Prime more about his glitch and how he fought it. And he could not bring himself to terminate the feed of Inferno’s body trembling against that console, with Red Alert plugged into the monitors less than a mechano-meter away from him and seemingly not even watching him.

Prime’s presence was carefully pushing for attention over the hardline, and his attempt to siphon more information was the last straw. Prowl disconnected his plug from Prime’s socket without warning, not caring that it fragmented several packages about to be transmitted.

“Prowl?”

Prowl did not have enough processing power left to determine what emotions Prime’s fields flared with. He was more concerned that he would not make it to the solitude of his quarters or his office.

“I am going to call Ratchet,” Prime said. By the time Prowl’s sluggish processors had parsed the words and their meaning, Prime was already comming someone.

It was too much. He sent Red Alert their hard-stop signal. /Abort. Glitch./

The response was immediate alarm, without any busy-notice in between. /Cause?/

/Emotional response to Inferno. Explain to Prime. No Ratchet./

Prowl saw in the feed how Red Alert stiffened and completely ignored Inferno’s trembling frame gearing up for another overload. /Acknowledged. One and a half klik./

In one and a half klik, Red Alert would check on him again, check whether he was still responsive on a base level. To prevent a serious processor melt-down from happening undetected.

“No Ratchet. Red Alert will explain,” Prowl managed to say out loud, and then let his processors go.


	35. mile

“Eh, it’s not that I find it strange or offensive or anything -- well, strange maybe -- but, Prowl, you do know that your fields kind of feel like you’re really, really charged. Like overload-any-nanoklik charged.”

Prowl tilted his doorwings in curiosity. Of course Bluestreak wasn’t wrong with his observation -- one of Red Alert’s vibrators buzzed happily away in his valve -- but Prowl had carefully kept his fields free of arousal. “They do?”

Bluestreak nodded rapidly. “Yes! And at first I thought there was something wrong with my sensors because you don’t look like a charged mech, and really, the only other mechs that felt like this were pretty incoherent and -- well, I guess you know what it’s like. But then your wings twitched like Smokey’s always do just before he overloads, and there is that glow in your optics that comes from high charge, and if you aren’t close to overload then there’s got to be something wrong with you ‘cause it just can’t be healthy to run so high during normal function. Then again, I haven’t seen a mech this close to overload for such a long time, either, so maybe there’s something wrong with you anyway, and if that’s the case you really should go see Ratchet because that can’t be healthy.”

Before Bluestreak could go on talking a mile a minute, Prowl raised a servo. Why Bluestreak was going through the Ark with his sensornet ramped up to full battle-readiness, he could not discern. Because that was the only way Prowl could explain that Bluestreak had sensed anything -- by feeling the electron flow right inside Prowl’s frame, a level of sensitivity that only doorwinged mechs could achieve, and that only when straining. “There is nothing wrong with me, Bluestreak. My frame has been constructed so that I can sustain a charge for orns without taking damage. My tac-net actually needs what would be a charge for most other mechs, to function at full capacity.”

The batch of preprog tacticians he had been designed in, all had that mod. His processors were so powerful that his regular frame output did not generate the energy his tac-net could handle. Of course, their designers had not expected them to interface for work -- their charge had been provided by whatever terminal they had been plugged into. There had been no pleasure involved. Well, at least not during work hours. Prowl was quite certain that all members of his batch had found out sooner or later how to use their unique mods for more recreational purposes. There had never again been a batch with his special processor configuration.

Bluestreak’s eyes widened. “Oh! I didn’t know that! Your tac-net must be really advanced then, to need so much energy. Not that anyone would ever doubt you’re the best tactician ever, but I didn’t know that your frame’s so advanced! I think it’s awesome you can use charge like this, and I’m really sorry I distracted you from your work! It’s got to be really important if you’re running at a hundred percent. Bye!”

Before Prowl could get in a word edgewise, Bluestreak had already left his office with a bounce in his step and his wings held high. There was still a bit of concern in his fields, but it was very much overshadowed by a spark-felt trust that Prowl would do his best to keep the Decepticons away.

Prowl shook his head slightly. He had not needed to say anything; Bluestreak had more or less constructed his own explanation. And Prowl had been about to tell him about the Arrangement, too.


	36. brakes

The attractor of Prime’s presence proved too strong via hardline. Either that, or Prowl and Red Alert were too dualistic to make a three way connection possible. Even when Prime was only a passive partner in the merge, the enormity of his mental presence was enough to make him an influential distraction. Maybe they were too used to Inferno’s passive observations that did not tangent them. Every time they felt Prime’s thoughtshell, they experienced an uncomfortable jolt. They eventually did reach overload, but it was disjointed and largely unsatisfying. All three of them agreed there would not be a repeat.


	37. screen

Prowl studied the security technician. The other preprog mustered him with the same intensity, their fields touching carefully to feel out their compatibility which they had already determined over the course of long negotiations. The red and white mech was a lot more composed than the orn Prowl had met him in the medbay; however his fields still vibrated with the first frayings of a glitch. It seemed to be his standard disposition.

Their contract negotiations had lasted exceptionally long because the proposed mode of Agens and Reagens could not be entered when the participants had no knowledge of each other. However, they had meticulously screened their personality matrices, and Prowl thought they had a working configuration now.

“On your knees,” Red Alert ordered.

Prowl obeyed. He wondered what this first interface of their new arrangement was going to be like.


	38. wisdom

Prowl studied Red Alert for a long time, tasting his fields, straining his doorwings to the maximum to take in as much information as possible with passive scans only.

“And that is something you desire?” he finally asked.

“I have heard that it can be an exceedingly pleasurable experience if performed right. Also, if you find it enjoyable, it may be a way to allow me to approach you when my glitch otherwise would not.”

Prowl nodded slowly. He could see how his Agens could come to that conclusion at the suggestion of Prowl letting himself be bound. However, there was one problem. “I assume your glitch will not be able to handle giving me a last-resort override to whatever bondage implements you are going to use?”

His Agens deliberated for a bit, his fields twisting with a new flare of paranoia. “It is not a problem right now,” he finally decided. “However, when I am already sensitized towards trust-issues, it will not be possible.”

“And I project with an eighty percent probability that I will not be able to handle being restrained to immobility in such a situation. Since there is a high chance that it will not work for its intended purpose in bridging the gap for Limited Terms, do you still wish to proceed?” Prowl was still not convinced of the wisdom of attempting something this potentially triggering for an uncertain amount of benefit; however, he could not deny some curiosity as well.

Red Alert nodded. “I would like to have tried it out at least once.”

“Very well. It will not happen while either of us is on duty. Neither will you leave my field range once I am bound. And while I do not necessarily need a release-override for the restraints, it would be appreciated. I cannot tell for certain how I am going to react.”

“Excellent. Third orn of next decaorn?”

“Agreed.” Prowl nodded to Red Alert and left the security office. He would have to run several simulations beforehand to prepare his tac-net for the influx that would inevitably happen should his emotional centers draw a connection between being bound and his captivity at Decepticon hands. Sometimes, those preliminary emotional mappings were enough to stave off a glitch. Hopefully, it would work in this case.


	39. pillar

Even though Red Alert did not bring it up again, Prowl was quite aware that his Agens was still very much fascinated with the possibility of hardlining. It was a pillar of their arrangement that, unless stated otherwise in their contract, nothing was off-limits. So Prowl did not comprehend why Red Alert did not continue with the logical follow-up to his Agens’s continued interest. The failure with Prime surely was no indication of their general capability, especially since the hardline itself had worked without problem.

Eventually, Prowl decided to take matters into his own servos, and questioned the one mech who would know more than any other about connections.

Blaster was a bit surprised at his request initially, but he quickly saw the danger of preprogs merging thoughtshells. And the trouble of trying for a binary merge when they could not hardline directly. Without hesitation, the mech offered himself as hub.

“For your part, that means you can just treat it like plugging into a main frame. I won’t do anything a mainframe wouldn’t, stream you the correct data, and keep my processors completely away from you. Only I’ll keep a thread on your traffic volume so that you don’t work each other into a glitch. That’s the only thing I’m gonna do -- how ‘bout that?”

Prowl had no desire to interface with a Normal; however the very nature of hardlining prevented any other solution. It was simply too dangerous with preprogs alone. “You will not intrude into our thoughtshells?”

“Nope. I’m a professional Communications mech -- I know how to transfer and monitor data without reading it. And I bet the physical charge I’m gonna get from the two of you is gonna be intense enough already, so no snooping where I’m not wanted. Boyscout’s honor.”

Prowl nodded in acceptance. “Very well. I will confer with Red Alert, and if he is agreeable we will schedule a session.”


	40. grease

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update of 2013/06/03 begins with [Ch. 33: ring](http://archiveofourown.org/works/582597/chapters/1574333)

The latest stress-test of Prowl’s control was a two-part magnetic set. While one half remained inside Prowl, the other was mounted beneath his chair. Every time his Agens dialed up the intensity, the plug inside Prowl tried to follow the call. Next to the two-sided stimulation to his panel, the magnetic field alone was thoroughly distracting.

It certainly made the staff meeting a lot more interesting. However, he would have to talk to his Agens about being allowed to use absorbent pads -- he needed to be able to get up without leaving tell-tale lubrication grease on the furniture.


	41. engineer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Start of update 2013/07/10

When he entered Medical, the medic took one look at him, and scowled. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Prowl cocked his head. “And why would that be?”

“You’re an _M-Series_.”

“And why would that be a problem?”

“Of course you wouldn’t see anything wrong with it,” the medic mumbled to himself. “So,” louder, “what’s your glitch?”

Prowl held his doorwings in his usual ‘attention’ position, despite the annoyance his tac-net had identified in his emotional makeup. At least this medic seemed to have a working knowledge of preprogs, even if he was exceedingly brusque and didn’t seem to think much of them. “That should be part of my medical file.”

The medic huffed and threw the datapad he had been holding onto his desk. “You’re right, it _should_. Whoever that hack of a medic was that you saw before, should be disassembled because his parts are worth more on their own than in combination. Looks like he never heard of preprogs before. Let me guess, it’s something to do with emotions? You sure were in his medbay often enough for ‘shock’, ‘posttraumatic stress symptoms’ and ‘psychological overload’.”

Prowl inspected the medic critically. 

After that failure with Mortherboard, he had read the new medic’s file _before_ reporting for his vornly maintenance appointment. As second in command of Tactics, Prowl had had access to the medic’s complete file, even the closed-off part of his past as senator under Sentinel Prime. 

When the senate had become more and more unreasonable towards the end, the then-senator had only barely escaped an assassination attempt not even targeted at him, and vanished for the next hundred vorns. Even Spec-ops had had trouble tracking him through a series of rebuilds and safe-houses, until he appeared as junior apprentice in Praxus General. 

Within two centuries, the former senator had become one of the premier mechanics, another two centuries after that the codemaster and nanotech subdegrees had followed. The vorn Praxus had fallen, the medic -- by then also officially recognized as one -- had been in Iacon on a medical exchange project. He had joined the Autobots after that, and then quickly risen to head medic for Prime’s inner cadre. He was one of the few medics who did not mind being out on the battlefield and, if necessary, defending a patient’s life with lethal force.

Although Motherboard certainly had been competent in surgery and trauma treatment, this medic seemed considerably more rounded according to his stats in software management, hardware, electronics, mechanics, and micro-engineering. Prowl decided to make his final decision dependent on how the medic reacted to his glitch. “You are correct that it has something to do with emotions. The entirety of my spark chamber is connected to my tac-net. That results in some... complications.”

The medic rebooted his vocalizer audibly. “You do your emotive processing on your _tac-net_? No, not only your emotive but your _entire_ processing. I assume that the complications come from incompatible processing requirements? Or is it the formats?”

“A bit of both. My tac-net requires a rationalization of my emotions, and while I am capable of performing those calculations in most cases, they are not very suited for the hardware acceleration of tac processors.”

The medic stared at him for a long moment, then shook his head and huffed. “What do I need to do to bring you out of a glitch? You seem to come out of it well enough alone so far, but it takes time we might not have.”

Prowl’s appreciation of the medic rose for the ruthlessly practical approach. “If my tac-net can still respond to outside input, a high-priority order with either medical or Prime authorization will allow me to temporarily postpone the freeze. If not, the freeze time can be shortened by sufficient energy influx. Alternately, a hard reboot will wipe the problem stack.”

“Very well. I will monitor you during your next glitch, and if the severity-level indeed is nothing more than a benign freeze, that will be your treatment. Since you’re one of our best tacticians, I assume there are no complications with your M-Series build?”

Prowl acknowledged his own annoyance that mingled with the positive impression the medic had made on him so far. “I do not know what your preoccupation with my M-series build is, but I assure you I have full control over it.”

At least the medic seemed to be as knowledgeable as the precinct metics back in Praxus, those for the preprogs. Which was not much of an endorsement, because pretty much the _only_ thing the precinct medics were proficient in, was preprog builds and whatever immediate measures were necessary to keep them from crashing right at that moment.

The medic rubbed a servo over his facial plates. “I’ve seen exactly two other M-series before. One of them was a charge addict and went into spark fluctuations as soon as he was disconnected. The other starved himself to deactivation because some brilliant hack thought he could cure the M-series facing problem by wiring his facing pleasure to produce enough error messages to drop a shuttle-former. He refused any and all charge, and it seems that the M-series energy requirements can’t be covered with energon and regular function alone.” The medic refocused sharply on Prowl. “So, I ask you again. You have your M-series specialty under control?”

Prowl tilted his head slightly in acknowledgement. While he had not run into that specific problem, he was aware of that shortcome in his design. The medic had made his point. “I am in an arrangement that covers those needs. And my tac-net does not support an addiction. My continued functioning, either as a mech or a tactician, is not in any danger.”

“That’s all i wanted to know. Any other specialties I need to be informed of before I plug in?”

“None.”

“Excellent. Then lie down and prepare for a trace-level systems check. Why you haven’t had one before, or at least the records of one, I don’t know.”

Mutely, Prowl complied. So far, the medic definitely had collected several bonus points compared to Motherboard or the precinct ones. It would be interesting to see how his tac-net rated Ratchet by the end of the diagnosis.


	42. stock

Contract amendments happened. The third time, for example, had been necessitated by Prowl’s promotion to chief tactician. It explicitly forbid any actions that would endanger Prowl’s reputation in the processors of his subordinates. The semi-public edging described in the second amendment had to be restricted to situations when Red Alert was fully able to prevent exposure should Prowl lose control after all. 

In one of the following versions, that amendment was amended yet again to Red Alert not needing to tell Prowl just how he intended to keep their privacy. Prowl had decided that the uncertainty added spice to both their experiences. 

Version eight had been hammered out after his Decepticon captivity. Version ten was the side-contract with Inferno. It took another few revisions until Prowl allowed the possibility of spark chamber play. 

It wasn’t until version 18 though that they had the first negative amendment. Neither bondage -- Prowl could not bear to have control taken away from him in that way; nor hardline -- not even a professional communications mech like Blaster could give them a connection to their satisfaction -- could be made to work for them, and Prowl wanted the security of knowing those methods would not make an appearance in their arrangement ever again.

Taking stock of their interactions, they both agreed that they had enough non-standard practices to keep things interesting and novel anyway.


	43. hour

Prowl’s vents were all opened to the maximum, his armor flared to obtain more surface for cooling. He had locked his joints even as his fields flared wildly.

“You will last until I have overloaded,” his Agens’s words had been. Two joor ago.

Red Alert was stroking Prowl’s spike slowly, exactly at the same speed he had started out. In the beginning, it had not been much of a distraction. However, the charge had built unnoticeably over time, and Prowl had been fighting overload for the past three hours. Every now and then, he just had to engage his tac-net to bleed off some charge -- not matter how much control, frames could only deal with so much excess energy without the safety feature of overload engaging. And Red Alert was still stroking him with the same intensity as the beginning, with no sign in his Agens’s fields of an overload approaching.

Suddenly, Prowl was pinged by Trailbreaker. //Emergency tactical meeting in room B-X52. Spec-Ops agent, codename ‘Meister’, has returned with time sensitive information.//

Alarm routines wiped enjoyment from his processors, and the charge in his lines was temporarily being cleared by the power consumption of his rapidly booting secondary and tertiary tac processors. Meister. One of their most successful agents, tasked to somehow get into Darkmount. Jazz had only been sent out two decaorn prior, hardly enough time to infiltrate Decepticon headquarters successfully. For the head of SpecOps to return so soon, something enormous must have happened.

Prowl vented hard and forwarded Trailbreaker’s comm to his Agens.

Red Alert’s servo on his spike had frozen when he had noticed the sudden change in Prowl’s frame language, his fields, his charge. Although it didn’t happen often, it was not an unfamiliar event that duty interrupted. They had a routine for it, and his Agens was all business as soon as he deciphered the content of the message. “Overload or tac-net?”

Prowl had had charge linger in his lines for two joor already, and he was bound to do a long stint of high-power processing. For optimal performance, it would be good if his systems were cleared beforehand. “Overload.”

His Agens nodded. “Then overload.”

Prowl was used enough to following his Agens’s orders that, while he couldn’t quite overload on command, it took only two more strokes on his spike. Of course, it helped that his Agens pushed the digits of his other servo into his valve ever so slowly; which, in his state of high arousal, was far more effective than a harsh thrust.

Twenty nanokliks after the com notice had reached him, Prowl had rebooted, his interface panel was cleaned, and he was on his way to Tacs.


	44. migraine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update of 2013/07/10 starts with chapter 41 - engineer

Prowl onlined sluggishly to arguing. 

“Me Swoop am good medic, too! Me Swoop know exactly what wrong with him Prowl.”

First Aid sighed exasperatedly. It took a lot to make the normally placid Protectobot sigh like that, but Swoop -- in conjunction with Prowl’s presence -- managed to do it. “Alright, Swoop, then what is wrong?”

“Him Prowl need get laid!”

First Aid’s engine gave a wet, spluttering cough of accidentally being drowned in fuel. His fields, too, did some interesting contortions between embarrassed disbelief and utter mortification. “You --- that’s -- Swoop, I know what Sideswipe and Sunstreaker say, but Prowl doesn’t have any rods shoved up his exhaust pipe, and even if he had, facing wouldn’t cure that. It would have to be surgically removed. I want to hear constructive suggestions what might be wrong with him, not this... this rubbish!”

Prowl’s tac-net took more than ten nanokliks to decide that it was only a 38.7 percent probability that First Aid had meant that comment about rod removal as a joke. It took even longer to extract the memory-files of just why he was lying in med-bay with First Aid and Swoop arguing over him. 

Something was wrong with him. Very wrong.

During normal function, Prowl would have had the result within less than a tenth of the time. However, it appeared the primary reason why he was in med-bay was the highly alarming slow-down of his systems which had not been preceded by a glitch. And Ratchet was absent because he and Red Alert and Prime were on a mission in Washington, leaving Prowl to his two apprentices. Who were still arguing loud enough to give him a migraine.

Swoop flared his wings agitatedly. “Me Swoop know that! Me Swoop say get laid because him Prowl _no_ has stick up exhaust pipe for long time. Me Swoop thinks him First Aid needs to read Prowl medical file better!”

The slowness of Prowl’s tac-net didn’t allow him to react before First Aid had gotten three quarters through a lecture on how it was entirely unprofessional of Swoop to behave in such a fashion. It was so tedious doing calculations that normally shouldn’t take more than a fraction of a nanoklik, and his internal chronometer seemed to race at speeds unheard of. 

But Swoop’s explanation made sense, in a convoluted way. 

All of Prowl’s systems reported energy insufficiencies although his tanks were full and his energon processing was running smoothly. While he might be infected with a virus or a bug in his operating system, Prowl thought it much more likely that his M-Series build had caused the trouble.

He hadn’t been able to plug into a tactical energy feed for three orns because Soundwave’s cassettes had damaged the Ark’s tac-consoles. The datapins were already fixed again, but repairing the energy conductors had been of a low priority as Prowl was the only tactician to use them.

No bot, not even Prowl, had taken into account that his tac-net, when fully utilized, used more energy than his frame normally produced. With the strain he had been under the last couple orns, it was no wonder his safety shutdown had activated.

Swoop’s crude suggestion of Prowl interfacing with someone, was a viable solution to the problem at hand. Arousal was a frame-function that accelerated energon conversion to normally unhealthy levels so that excess charge could be generated -- and for Prowl, it would counteract his energy insufficiency. 

Normally though, the excess charge served as fail-safe to bridge the infinitesimal amount of time during which systems rebooted during overload -- even the powerplant normally responsible for all energy matters. The human euphemism of ‘little death’ was quite accurate, if one equated overload with orgasm. For a fraction of a nanoklik, it was indeed only the spark that was alive during overload. 

Analytically viewed, overload carried a risk of deactivation; however, statistics had shown that less than one in a billion mechs deactivated during. And overloads and the corresponding system reboots were an integral part of system maintenance. A lack of maintenance reboots inevitably led to glitches that could infect anything down to spark containment. A much more serious condition. 

But since the act of generating charge was so highly pleasurable, hardly a mech refused to do the maintenance reboots. A wise choice in their design.

Without his Agens’ presence though -- Red Alert was in Washington on a mission with Prime and Ratchet -- Prowl hadn’t felt any desire to trigger his arousal frame-function, and true need was still a long time off. Maintenance reboots could be drawn out to once a vorn or less without any negative side effects, so he hadn’t seen a reason to indulge himself yet. Additionally, he had been entirely too busy.

Apparently, however, that had been a mistake. It seemed that the previous times he had had to run his tac-net without the support of an energy feed, his arrangement with Red Alert had kept his energy levels balanced.

Yes, Swoop’s suggestion of triggering Prowl’s arousal frame-function was a perfectly solution, contrary to First Aid’s denials. 

Prowl would really have to talk to Ratchet when he returned from Washington. First Aid was much too busy shooting down his colleague’s suggestions to think of diagnosing Prowl, let alone finding an acceptable cure. For one, seeing that they were in Medical, there were options other than overload.

In the end, Prowl took matters into his own servos since the two medics did not seem to be inclined to stop arguing before Prowl shut down again from lack of energy. And who knew how long it would take them to come to a treatment plan.

Prowl had to perform several noisy sound-checks of his vocalizer to draw the arguing medics’ attention. He cut them off before they could exclaim over his wakefulness. “While I am certain an interface would cure me, Swoop, an energy feed will do so as well. First Aid, I would appreciate if you could finally read my entire medical file. Ratchet has left annotations that my tac-net demands more energy than my frame produces, and if you had read it you would have known that Swoop’s suggestion was not as silly as you made it out to be. I didn’t say anything when I came to you for the lubrication problem, but your misinformation concerning my medical needs is unbecoming. I do not comprehend why interfacing makes you react like a prude human; especially as a medic, you should be aware that it is a frame-function like any other.”

Energy conservation alerts were pinging back at him, warning Prowl of an imminent shutdown. He barely managed to get out, “Now, I believe you have tasks to perform.”

Then his systems were already shutting down into stasis again before he could process more than a horrified look spreading on First Aid’s features and through his fields. Hopefully, Ratchet -- and Red Alert -- would be back soon.


End file.
